This is a typical "me" afternoon.

Sitting at my desk in a building spaz trying to work through the idea of the death of one's lifetime partner.

So you have these, like, mostly wonderful 30-50 years of marriage (you know, all divorce stuff aside) and then your partner dies.

You know, they die after all this life-building is complete. You've hit retirement, you've bought the overpriced, fuel-inefficient RV, and then this person that has been by your side for decades is suddenly whisked away by a rogue blood clot.

Or whatever.

So you've got these remaining, oh, 1-20 years of your life left without this person that you imagined spending all this "remaining" (depressing word choice, yay!) time with.

But they aren't there.

And your kids have moved out and had families of their own.

And your health isn't getting any better, on average. You could be in shitty health but still truck away for a good decade.

So you hop from senior citizen home to senior citizen home until you can't take care of yourself anymore and then you wind up in one of those homes halfway between a regular senior citizen "home" and a hospice.

And, if you track back a little bit, the last few years of your partner's life could have been filled with pain and you were unable to do anything about it except help him/her get out of bed. Right? Impotent against the body's decay, frustrated and hurting for your partner.

So it wasn't just a happy, easy, in his/her sleep death, it was a miserable, in and out of hospitals, pacing the corridors, drinking shitty coffee and eating even shittier hospital food, watching them sleep, watching then TV on mute or low volume, whatever show happens to be on. And then you watch that show over and over as the days pass, sometimes weeks pass.

And then you get them out of the hospital but, really, they're wasted. More skin and bones than they were.

And you know each trip to the hospital is not going to help them get better, but prolong.

They're almost like little refill stations running rapidly out of gas.

The car is going to stop eventually.

But you keep taking her in and filling her up because of love, because you want him/her not to be in pain, and you've got this hope that things will turn around.

And sometimes they do.

But, eventually, goes back down again.

So, five years later you've gone through the house you guys bought together, someplace either in the naturey-bit of the world or someplace near your kids so you can babysit the grandkids, you've gone through memories and letters and ticket stubs, you've given away all your furniture as you deconstruct this life, boxes and cupboards you haven't touched in twenty years emptied under your fingers. If you're lucky, you'll have an offspring or two there to help you do it, keep you company, tell stories to and think about the good times, keep you distracted from how much everything simply sucks.

Then you take a couple suitcases and your favorite photos and move to this senior citizens' home.

Where you are surrounded by six dozen people in the same situation.

And you're goddamned depressed because you're alone.

And, yeah, the first few weeks, maybe even the first few months, you get visits from your kids, your grandkids, but after you "settle in" and after the novelty of it wears off, the visits trickle to those only inspired by guilt.

And you're still alone. Without your mate. Waking up and reaching for their hand every morning, like you have for the last thirty years, but that hand isn't there buit you can't break the goddamned habit because you've been doing it for so long, so each morning is a reach for the left side of the bed followed by tears.

So you get a cat.

Or some goldfish.

And sit on the edge of your bed in the morning, if you can motivate yourself to get that vertical, and list out these reasons why you should continue moving forward.

And it makes me wonder, overall, if it's easier to live with brief partners, have a life of happiness, and no partner at the end, no one to leave you through death, no one to mourn.

Or if it's easier to go through all of the above, having lost one's partner.

And if, really, for some it would have been easier to not have experienced such things, and for others it was completely worth it, depending on the personality of the person in question.

Where do I want to be? Where will I be? Will I even make it to 30? What will I live and regret doing, regret not doing, and in fifty years, will that be me sitting on the edge of the bed, being stared at by some cat that is decades away from being born, looking for reasons to live?



...........................


The above is why I read other blogs and webcomics at work. Otherwise I drive myself absolutely insane and sit here, like I am, with my eyes kinda like this --> o.O turning into a total spaz, having to call PD and go, "AAAAAAH CHRIST LIFE IS DIFFICULT!!" and then he laughs at me.

Fuck this, I'm spending the rest of my lunch break at Barnes and Noble, reading about hookers.

My brain has been a bit weird since late last night.

Which is normal, I suppose.

Last night was actually pretty wonderful. Well, it was nice, then it segued into pretty wonderful.

The pole dancing/fashion show... that was interesting. The hotel was okay, the pool was, as far as pools go, quite lacking. But the people watching (lots of women with a stripper/playboy bunny approach to clothing and make-up) was interesting enough.

What got me, out of all of it, was their approach to pole dancing. See, this was a pole dancing competition. And I don't mean a fun, "who can incite the most boners" approach, which is what I expected. I quickly came to learn that the competition for pole dancing is not for who is the most sexy (that actually seemed to be a bit frowned upon), who moves the best to the music (which was mostly ignored, making me question the word 'dancing' in the competition title), no, it was who can do the most impossible looking pose... and hold it.

It was basically a very slow moving gymnastics competition.

Unexpected. Unimpressed, for the most part. I love dancing, love watching others dance. There was one, maybe two girls, out of the entire evening that did anything remotely resembling moving to the rhythm.

So I got in my car and chugged on over to PD's place, texting him that I was on my way and quite aroused (not due to the dancers, thank you, just due to the thought of seeing him).

We have such an excellent connection. Being able to lie in bed with someone for hours and just talk, tease, and fuck... it's wonderful. Tickling, squealing, slapping... laughing and licking. He amazes me. He's such a good man or, at least, good to me. His personality is so wonderful, he's so goddamn smart and constantly makes me laugh, something I haven't had with a boyfriend before, though Rick came close.

It was lovely.

But then, somehow, the topic of money came up. How he is so far deep in debt we now have to lock the gate because his car might be in default. Months behind on rent, electricity and water bills in the high hundreds each month. The porn industry, at least as we know it, is dying. And he's left here, stress growing, little to no work... and I hate it.

I hate that I can't do anything about it. His bills probably hit somewhere between $9-10K a month. Anything I could do to help would be a drop in the bucket. A needle inserted into a haystack with no intent of removal.

I can't help and it kills me. I just sit and watch him stress.

I've always been the helpful one, who rushes into battle, who leaves the office at a phone call to go save the day or lend a hand. Give time, give money, give an ear and a shoulder.

Not here, not now.

I'm useless, or next to it.

Frustrating helplessness.

I'm a 26 year old college student with an income that covers my bills, covers my tuition, and allows me to save some. That's about it. I'm no trustfund baby, my parents have been in poor circumstances since Dad went batty last year and lost his job, I can't even help them.

Where I am in life does not afford it. They, PD and my parents, are in an entirely different income and debt bracket than I am. My debt is near laughable.

I keep thinking I could just speed up the book, dedicate my nights and weekends to it, to the research, the interviews, churn it out and someone, somewhere, will magically hand me money and I'll be able to fly in and fix everything that has gone wrong.

But that's not the way reality works. This isn't a course on wish-fulfillment.

And all I can do is be sweet and supportive, loving and nuturing, having faith that things will turn around for both parties. Somehow. Not contribute to the stress, if I can't take away from it.

Back to life.

Our hearts are read...

I am two arms, two legs, hands and feet, and the brain dictates the flesh.

My tongue has traveled miles of skin, tasting the oil and sweat of men, feeling the dips and ridges of each outer layering.

My great grandmother was an opera singer, parting her lips for audiences through both North and South America, her husband dead too early, she left her only child in the care of other families as she toured, moving away from grief.

I've been in beds across the country, for reasons platonic and sexual, mattresses playing host to my roaming needs. Sheets cold and smooth, wrinkled and warm, flannel pilling up like a soft brillo pad, my body has met them, sweated and slept.

My great grandfather was in the Illinois National Guard. He broke my grandfather's nose with a chair to the face sometime before he passed away, when my grandfather was 10.

These visible reactions, the crooked nose with the charming face, is something that would last in impact, last in romance, bringing him through the series of girls until he married the one that became my grandmother.

My nose is straight, a nearly unnoticeable tilt at the end, something given to me by both parents, a gift that I have buried in the crooks of so many necks, the inside curve of a hipbone, the base of a man's skull, short hairs tickling that slightly curved tip.

My grandmother came out on a bus from Arkansas, into Los Angeles, to find work. She found my grandfather instead, and with him, the left shoe to her right, the matching pair, they created two children that would go on to lead vastly different lives.

My grandfather came out, likely on a wagon, from South Dakota. A serious man, a quiet man, who could only express affection for his wife and daughter- never his son. Popular theory is that he could not stand his wife loving another man, even his own offspring.

These trickles of love and neglect carry down.

When my aunt was young, sometime between nine and twelve years old, she was raped. That changed her, altered her, for the rest of her life. Nothing would be the same, and no one would ever know it had happened, save for her mother, until after she had killed herself in the summer of August 2009, when her husband was going through her childhood writings and discovered this tale.

My grandmother covered it up, from a need for privacy that would pervade her life, a need that I have never felt.

So when my father's older sister took that gun to the garage, she was blowing away forty years of a life she had not asked to lead, a life of fear and bad choices left splattered on a wall behind her.

Leaving us to wonder if the man who took her, used her, had any idea of how much everything would be altered for his few minutes, few hours, of lust.

Lives change in a day.

I sit and look at my dad, now in his late fifties. His family, his original set, is buried together in a cemetery a little less than twenty miles away.

Beloved Mother,
Beloved Father,
Beloved Sister.

He can visit his entire family in one day.

I'm left here to watch, and when I walk into his office, see him trying to pull himself together, constantly at the computer, studying, emailing, reaching to save what he has left of himself, I'm reminded that all stories do not have happy endings.

Some just end.

Blinking at the screen.

While my brain isn't going haywire or anything resembling haywire (the origins of the word "haywire", anyone?), circuits are still firing.

Went over to C's new apartment. Just a few blocks down the way from mine. Getting there made me grateful to have a parking space, as I ended up having to park in front of what I believe was a lesbian bar two blocks away.

It's a cute place. Large, lots of built-in shelving and cabinets. Not enough windows for my taste- there's never enough windows. One of the reasons I picked the apartment I'm in now was because the windows take up more than fifty percent of the walls they rest in.

She has so much stuff. Wandering around piles of boxes and clothes, random assorted things that I've never seen before though I couch-surfed with her for nearly a year. I don't have a lot of stuff. I'm not a monk or anything, but my belongings, furniture aside, would probably only need the smallest U-Haul and not necessarily fill that.

Her boyfriend was there. I watched them interact. She had mellowed down significantly, and I have to wonder if it is because of another man she has recently started dating (she and her boyfriend believe in open relationships)... the whole available resources thing.

And this other guy is a douche. I really cannot stand him. I've tried, for her, I've tried. But, as of last night, I've reached the amount of my time I'm willing to spend in his company. No more.

He's slimy. Manipulative. So very self-centered. Martyring. Socially job-centric. Materially validating. Damp. He's constantly damp, his hands, his hair, his skin, a slight sheen of sweat. Sneering lips, baby-cheeked, his hair cut in a slight A-line, curving around his jaw, up at a tiny angle. Too-small glasses. Clothing over-tight. Not because he's fat (not at all), but because he has to have the skinny-fit everything.

And he provokes. And he condescends. Plays "poor me".

I've shut him down twice now. Once on C's birthday, when he was going on and on about how the restaurant she had chosen (start nasal accent here) obviously wasn't high quality because he asked for a refill of his cappuccino and it never came, and he was just going to sit there because he shouldn't have to ask twice, if they were doing their job right. He'd rather go without his refill, he said, that deign to ask a second time. More annoying was that he also refused to ask a second time for a refill he had requested for C because of the same reasoning.

So I got it for him. Not in an obvious manner, but by meeting the gaze of the waiter, raising my eyebrows, he came, bent down, I asked for a refill of the drinks, not loud enough for anyone at the table to hear... and then when the waiter brought them less than two minutes later, he brought them to me. And I handed them out and went back to eating without saying a word.

It was, in its own quiet way, an amusing way of rubbing his nose into his own shit. And he knew it.

Last night, at the birthday dinner, he started bitching about his ex-girlfriend. C spurred this conversation, because she thought I would want to hear it.

After the second time of him whining that he never would have invested so much time and energy into this relationship if he had known she was going to leave him, I ignored him.

And not in a "I'm still looking at you, smiling when you smile, nodding when you nod, frowning when you frown" way.

No. I simply decided that I was no longer interested in his conversation and broke eye contact, shifted my body towards C, and waited for him to trail off in confusion and then I started a new conversation.

Was it bitchy? Myeh. It was a snub, but one that did not seem to get noticed by those around us.

When I hung out with C tonight, she was telling me that Mr Damp was also dating a stripper. He would meet her at her work and, apparently, allllll of the other strippers would hit on him and flirt with him and, apparently, pretty much any girl hits on him if he goes out and, apparently, he gets numbers all the time.

And, apparently, he's so sick of it and just wants to be left alone.

Apparently, I might punch him in his face if I'm forced to interact with him again.

... ... ... ...

On the sister-front, her ex-boyfriend used the key he had and let himself into the house last Thursday morning, 3AM.

His mission was to retrieve some coathangers he left there and get his apartment key back. They broke up around Easter of this year, tried to remain friends, despite his continued freak outs that she might be dating someone.

So he let himself in, went upstairs (luckily for him, my parents were out of town, or he would have gotten his ass handed to him), confronted my sister, and since the coathangers were scattered, he grabbed her phone as hostage and bolted down the stairs.

She chased after him, he jumped into his car (a car, by the way, that my parents gave him half the down payment for) and tossed the phone on the passenger seat. She leaned in to grab it, he took off (squealing tires, according to the girl who is renting my old bedroom) and shoved her out of his moving vehicle into the street.

She called him from the renter's cellphone, he said he would bring her phone back in exchange for the keys and hangers, then didn't show up for an hour.

When he did show up, he wanted to go inside the house. My sister wouldn't let him. The girl who is renting my room, a friend of my sister's, came outside the house with her.

Of course, then the nutbag grabs her, breaks one of her fingers, bruises her wrist, cuts a divot out of another finger with the key he's so desperate to suddenly get from her at what is now 530AM. Both girls start shrieking and hitting and kicking him but he won't let go and since they are both girly girls, neither of them knows how to do an ounce of damage (kids, this is why you spec for DPS).

While they are trying to get them off of my sister, the roommate digs her cellphone out of her pocket and calls the cops (yes, while continuing to ineffectually hit him).

The screaming wakes up the navy guy who is renting the guest room.

He comes downstairs, diffuses, does the exchange, and minutes before the cops pull up, the nutbag drives off into the night.

Statements are taken, pictures of her hands and arms are taken, police go hunting for the nutbag, my sister gets a temporary restraining order.

Once the police leave, my sister finds out why he didn't show up for an hour.

You see, he had logged onto her Facebook, changed the email associated with the account, and proceeded to go through all of her messages and any that were from males, wrote to them that "we can no longer see each other". And then messaged her coworkers saying offensive things. And then posted degrading status messages. And then texted some people, in particular the girlfriend of one of her male friends informing her that her boyfriend had been cheating on her with my sister. And other things.

Whether or not any of this has any lasting impact on her very active social life, it's fairly clear that he's a nutbag. When you add into this equation that he has an autistic kid he's fighting a losing custody battle for, he's obviously gone off the deep end.

My sister, having been shielded from any sort of asshattery like this in the past by either my parents, myself, or her own defensive mental barriers, was not really psychologically prepared for it.

I spent Thursday day hanging out at the parents' house, letting her sleep, looking into getting the locks changed, talking with the roommate, then driving us all to Taco Bell for quick dinner and girltime.

My parents are trying to get her to get a permanent restraining order, but she's balking because she doesn't want him to lose custody of his kid. We'll see how things go.

And, though I was planning another thing in this post, I think I'll get running to bed. Places to go, pillows to visit.

In an odd turn of events, my sister's ex-boyfriend got into my parents' house on Wednesday night and attacked her.

PD is now telling me that he suspects the women in our family have a superpower of making men go insane over long-term vaginal exposure.

I can't really argue with that.


As a side note, lost two public followers in the last two days. Wondering if that's just due to unrelated lifestyle/reading purges or if it's due to this blog suddenly not being about me mooning over GV8, apparently betraying him, losing loyalty, being a woman of easily swayed emotions to so easily leave him and start to love another.

It's not something I find thrilling.

I'm not given to love easily, not romantic love. Nor do I flit from one man to the next. Serial monogamist, yes, but I tend to have months and months between relationships. I've never had so quick a turn around, have not ever left a man for someone else, have not cheated on a partner since I was 17.

Trying not to look too down on myself for meeting PD and swooning over him so easily. It's hard, it's weird, it's not very me.

But, on the other hand, it is the way it is. I met him when I was recovering from GV8 leaving me yet again, met him before GV8 decided to come back and claim me, was already blushing and giggly over him.

I want to be happy. I want to pursue what feels *right* to me and not worry so much of how things look to others.

I know, I know very well that I am not like most other people. So why do I keep holding myself to their storylines?



And, in another side note, one of my favorite people in the blogosphere, Sistasage posted a link to an article I really, really enjoyed. So I thought I'd share.

I've been combatting a good deal of anxiety lately.

It's hard for me. I've always had anxiety issues, a mix between a chemical imbalance and growing up in a household that was erratically unstable. Never knowing when your father was going to go into a manic episode (though we did not know that was what was wrong at the time) was incredibly difficult to deal with, not just as a child, but as a teenager as well.

People talk a lot of Daddy issues, making the snide comments that Daddy didn't love the person in dicussion enough or loved them too much. They don't really talk about when Daddy loves them to death... but happens to go batshit insane a couple times a year.

It creates a lot of instability and, in my case, a constant fear that the people around me will be stimulated by some previously unknown (to me) trigger that will cause them to act out in extreme, irrational ways.

Which, as one might guess, causes me a good deal of anxiety in social interactions.

It has impacted my life in a lot of ways, a balance of good and bad, though, if you had to evaluate the loss of who and what I could be if I could get over this lifelong fear... it would be an overall bad impact.

Anxiety... it has kept me fairly isolated. I spent most of my youth writing, reading, playing computer games. I didn't socialize much, if I could help it, didn't really want to. And because I never learned how to interact with people in my own age demographic, I fell behind. Not homeschooling behind (most of you know what I'm talking about), but behind enough that I feel I did myself a disservice.

And it's hard to catch up.

I don't do well in new places with large crowds of people.

I hate when people get in my "personal space bubble" which tends to have a radius of about two and a half feet.

I've cultivated a social image at clubs I frequent of being cool, aloof, detached, and, I'm told, more than a bit intimidating simply because I do not feel, most nights, up to socializing. My posture, my walk, my facial expressions, body language, everything has been adjusted. And, since I'm one of the better female dancers in the club circuit I frequent, that ability on the dance floor just adds to the image.

I still spend a lot of time alone. I'm not reliant on my social circles. Movies, restaurants, social events, clubs, I go alone as often as I go with others.

As much as I distance myself from other people, I still manage to have a good deal of friends and a wide social network. Going out to new places, I nearly invariably run into someone I know. The friends I do make, I make good ones, close ones.

And since I've spent so much time alone, I've had time to write, time to think and analyze (navel gaze, some say) myself into the ground. And make changes. Fix things, fix damage that I've done to myself, damage others have done.

I'm used to being alone. I like being alone.

But, of late, my anxiety has gotten fairly intense. Not as intense as when my father had his breakdown last December, not as intense as when Darkeyes was terrorizing me the year before that. But enough to be impactful. Enough to leave me jittery for hours.

PD's been pretty good about it.

See, I'm great with casual sex, casual lovers. When it comes to someone I would actually *date*, someone I start dating with intent for something long term, the first two or three months is a batshittery of anxiety. Probably abandonment issues combined with the whole extreme reaction to odd trigger fear that my father instilled in me.

So I cling. I'm needy. The littlest thing will send me off into the deep end.

And I'll sit there and apologize to them, tell them that it'll go away, just to give me a couple months and I'll go back the the girl they asked out however long ago.

All of them have. They've sat there and held my hand, adjusted their behavior, and waited for me to get through my initial freak out stage.

And I do.

Unfortunately, this time around has been a little more hardcore than most because of leftovers from GV8.

As I've mentioned, GV8 would watch and evaluate my behavior, then judge it as suitable or not, never discussing if things were bothering him or he found behaviors unhealthy. When he reached his epic conclusion, he'd just spring it on me out of nowhere and ditch me or adjust our relationship down a level because I wasn't "x" enough to date.

So whenever PD doesn't text me, or doesn't say something I expect him to say, or has a slight frown cross his features because of something I said or did, I immediately assume it has gone into a tally against me and he's going to call me the next day or email me the next day and end it without discussion, without warning, so I'm going to go from super happy to devasted within seconds.

Makes me jumpy as hell.

Which makes me want to cling more.

Which is completely counterproductive.

So I sat down with him on Tuesday night and explained a whoooole bunch of things I had been considering lately, things like I'm afraid he's going to "surprise" me like GV8 did. That I'm getting too emotional over him too fast and it'll chase him off. That maybe he'll realize he needs time to recover from his ex. That I'm being so self-centered about all of this and he's got his own issues going on and I'm not taking them into consideration because I'm too busy freaking out. That I'm afraid he's going to realize what a wreck I am right now and he's going to ditch me.

It was a good talk.

It helped a lot.

Anxiety isn't nearly so bad now. It's still there, a hum in the back of my brain. But it is getting manageable.

I just hope that I'll be able to sort through all of this, compartmentalize all the baggage from GV8 and others and tackle it with faith in PD and faith in myself.

PD and I are taking our first mini-vacation together this weekend. Going up to Santa Barbara to be tourists and, of course, see my favorite band play. He's never seen them before, though he loves their CDs.

I'm pretty excited, all around. I'm getting happy again.

The things that you say that you do...

It's been a bit.

I know, I know. Six different kinds of fail. It's not like things haven't been happening, my life has suddenly grown dull. No, things are still chugging along, life is still odd, observations running full tilt, like they do. Still spending most of my time off in my head, watching the world.

It actually hasn't been that long. It only feels like it, I think, because of all the things I've been getting up to.

Kinda hard to cover them all. The experiences stack up and I only have short periods of time to allot to attend to them.

Family- my sister's exboyfriend phoned her with a suicide threat. After his mom called the cops, he admitted he only did it so they would get back together. Reminded me of the boyfriend I had when I was 17-18. He used to threaten suicide all the time, run off into the night saying he was going to throw himself into the nearest large intersection, but actually hide in the bushes. He was... 27, I think. A year older than I am now. Funny how then it seemed normal, and now it seems like crass idiocy.

Date- I have a date this weekend. No, not a serious one. Just a "get to know you" date. A "maybe we'll connect" date. Which I normally would've said no to, but when a man in his early forties with a shaved head who directs porn and owns a large loft/studio/warehouse/dungeon in downtown asks you out after you break up with a man in his early forties with a shaved head who has porn filmed in his large loft/studio/dungeon/adult club in Hollywood, you say yes.

Because I couldn't say no.

Because it's too goddamned silly.

And it cracks me up, in a way, because I am nowhere near as hot as the girls these guys see every day are, yet I'm the girl they ask out.

Win for me?

Work- training my assistant is... interesting. I'm trying out a new way to train and my boss wants me to document it so it can be implemented for future hires... assuming it's successful. The assistant himself is a total, total omega. At least in the way I view them, which may or may not be accurate to public opinion. He makes betas look alpha. It hurts. I want to take him to the kennel and teach him how to use newspaper instead of just making a mess everywhere when he "potties". He's a nice guy just... yeah.

Been talking with Roman a lot.

He's been going through some life upheavals.

It's... odd. I feel so connected to this man. Not necessarily in a romantic sense, but just, we get each other. We get each other in that basic way. So much so that we can actually talk to each other. About anything. Well, anything for me. He's still a bit hesitant. Doesn't matter. That driving urge for understanding I have so deep in me, that haunts me so much, he meets it.

Unusual.

He talks to me and I mellow out. My anxiety, my stresses, they leave my system and I feel like I can breathe again.

Hard to imagine I won't have his constant companionship soon.

But that's the way life goes.

I have a picture of my mother on her wedding day on my desk. She's holding her bouquet, smiling so widely, her dress pooling out around her. I have her smile.

I think she was twenty-three when she married my dad.

That's the way life went.

Twenty-three and so in love, so young, so inexperienced. They've been married over twenty-five years and the things they have gone through together are things that none of them had any inkling of when they met, when they married. My father danced at the wedding reception with his older sister, tall and blonde. Didn't know that a few decades later they'd find her body in the garage, a bullet in her brain.

Things move on. We just keep stringing ourselves through time, linked by experiences.

In a few years, I'll have lost friends to life, and I'll have gained new ones. I'll have dated and slept with men that I have yet to meet. Another broken heart, another experience to scribble about here, half-mad with exhaustion. Sweep me off my feet, then set me back on my heels.

There are people we connect with that we can't imagine not being there, in some capacity, for the rest of our conscious existence. Our parents are there from the moment we're born (usually) onward, our world is defined with them as part of it.

When they die, when they leave, what happens to our world? That role they filled can't be occupied by another.

To someone, somewhere, we truly are unique snowflakes. Common, but unmatched.

He asked me why I am so fascinated with him.

Am I supposed to say that every tone in his voice, I hear? Each word, each inflection, the shift in his moods comforts me. It's warm. It's like hearing every fantasy I've ever had come to life in a rough reality.

But it doesn't matter.

There are things that are real, things that will not be real. It doesn't matter how good you are, how true, how brave, there are things that will not be changed. It's not that they cannot be changed, but there are paths and dreams to follow, and friends wish you well, a smile, a hug, and hope that things work out to your fondest hopes.

Because they're nothing more to do.

And that's the way it goes.

To attempt to change it would be selfish, to demand more would be obscene.

I'll settle for what I have, keep ticking out these words, writing alone in my apartment, listening to the water run through the pipes and the traffic speed through the streets.

In the morning, I'll wake up, stretch, and keep living.

I am... well, I think I am, hitting that point.

That point where you're squirming in your chair going, "Oh god, I need to get laid."

And it's this battle between my body wanting it and my brain saying, "Nope, that's not the best idea."

In two weeks, I'll be hitting that three month mark. Three months for me is, well, might as well be a year or two. Especially after GV8. That man was ungodly good in bed, and we had ridiculous amounts of sex.

I got used to it. I got used to having a fantastic lover who, even after months of dating, still got me hot and bothered, still got me dragging him into bed to jump his bones whenever possible.

And now I've got this apartment to myself. I've got a metal canopy bed with a good number of tie-down spots. I've got toys, a large bottle of grapeseed oil, candles (not that most guys care about that, but I love the lighting), and... and... fuck. I mean, I can host. I can actually say, "Let's go back to my place" and not worry about roommates, not worry about what's going on, not sneaking them into my bedroom when I lived at home, timing when my parents would be out (though it's been years since I've had to do that).

I've got my own place with my own rules and I'm not using it.

It makes me whimper. Totally does.

I didn't realize I was having this issue so strongly until, last night, at the club, I found myself eyeing my club friend (the one that I keep having to turn down, the one I had to smack down a little bit ago at a party for him thinking he could socially pressure me into kissing him) going, "Hm... I could just crawl on top of him, go to town... he's got that reputation... could probably teach me a thing or three in the BDSM realm... mmm... skin and tongue..." and that shifted to "Whoa, holy fuck, no."

I don't find him desirable. I've never found him desirable.

This, this isn't good. And it's annoying.

Last night was interesting, though. Hit the club. Pulled into my usual parking spot, went inside after pleading with the door guy (wasn't much of a plead, really) to let me in without the person who was guestlisting me, so I could dance to a song that was on. And he did.

Lots of new people out. Some drama, though none of it involved me, which is normal. An acquaintance got shitfaced and started falling over, sobbing, laughing, getting pissy. Drama, drama, drama. Turned into a mid-sized ordeal.

On an amusing note, I happened to catch, while I was dancing, a blond man pointing gesturing at me to the head of security at the club. Figured the security guy would tell me if it was important, later, so I dismissed it.

About thirty minutes down the line, I'm out on the smoking patio, and Mr. Security comes up and says, "Hey, you know that blond guy..." describes him to me, "Have you ever talked to him?" Negatory. "Well, he pulled me aside and said, 'You! Study how she dances! Study how she moves! Watch her!"

"Okay..."

"And last week he was out and started talking about the bar-tender to me, about how..." insert x, y, and z pervy acts. This guy, not the most socially competent of men. I always get those men. I am a magnet for socially incompetent, as we have discussed.

So that was amusing. But, what was the killer for me was, oh, an hour or two down the line, I go to step on the dancefloor, which was fairly packed, and I realize that the empty spot I found is next to this guy.

Who looks at me.

Who leers at me and grins.

Who takes a step forward and puts his arms up towards me.

My mind went, "Eep!"

See, if you knew me at the clubs, you'd likely know that I've got years of experience moving away from groping men, physically aggressive men, and simply poor dancers without looking like I'm avoiding them. Without looking like I'm fleeing away in annoyance (or terror, if they're really bad dancers). Calm, cool, I can go across a whole dancefloor to avoid someone and make it look completely natural.

So this guy, this guy comes at me. No subtly. The dancefloor is packed. This guy, this guy is going to come up to me and either grab me or start talking my ear off with drunken compliments and poor flirting. And quickly.

I bolted. I bee-lined it across the back half of the dance floor and sequestered myself behind a guy I had met earlier in the evening. On the way, I nearly walked into someone, tripped a little. I don't do that. If anyone I knew had seen me, they would've been so confused. And once I explained, they would've laughed their asses off.

There were some random other events that happened, little things. A weird guy I've been seeing around for the last several months interrupted a conversation I was having to tell me that I was a beautiful dancer, a beautiful lady, and he should know, he's been married for twenty-six years.

And I still cannot figure out what the last thing had to do with the first two things.

I have an urge to put a comment here about being "too pretty" and something about my fashion accessories, but only one person would get it. So I won't.

Oh, and the head of security tried to make out with me at the end of the evening.

Except he's married. He's very married. And it was awkward. It was, "Oh god, how do I do this so I don't offend or embarrass him, yet still get him away from my face?"

I managed. But it left me a little... sad. He's been a decent friend for a couple years. We always flirt and cuddle, but he flirts and cuddles with most of the female regulars. He's really good at banter, lots of fun to talk to, and he's a good head of security. I do really like him.

Drove home. Woke up to a text from Roman telling me about his evening spent under the haze of hallucinogens. Or whatever they are. I don't know my drugs. I don't care to know them, really.

Went to my stylist who is finally back in town. Got my roots done. Oh, so done. So freaking done. I can't stand having that blonde there. Now I'm back to my black with my red-tinted tips and very much like a happy clam.

One of her other customers told her I looked like Snow White, while I was at one of the mirrors, finishing up my hair. I can only hope that I am able to maintain this level of paleness this summer.

And I finished my final paper. Whoo! I can have a life again. I was thinking of getting in touch with a guy I went out with earlier this year, hang out some, fool around some, now that I have a little more time, but I'm debating my actual motivation.

Oh, and I took my mom to Hollywood Forever Cemetary on Saturday. You know, usual mother-daughter bonding stuff. Visited the grave sites of my great-great grandparents.

And, of course, I was chased by geese.

It's a talent of mine.

Really.

If there are geese, they will chase me.

I don't understand it. I will possibly never understand it. I believe my uncle, later that day, was suggesting that I go see an exorcist.

Aside from the avian-induced terror, my mother and I had a great time trying to sneak around a building. We were tip-toeing, leaning around the corner like we were in a Scooby Doo episode, looking for the geese. Not that they chase my mom. But if they saw my mom, they'd see me, and then it'd be all over. It was kinda perfect, actually. We were on the outside of a large masoleum with marble steps that went around the entire building, so when we peered around the corner, we were at two different heights, really, just like Scooby Doo.

Of course, we got a few further steps in and one of the geese spotted me and I shouted, "It's comin' right for us!!" and we ran.

I took her by Aroma Cafe on Sunset (my favorite breakfast and lunch spot in Hollywood), Amoeba (she had never been, but was very excited about picking up two Franz Ferdinand CDs that she didn't have), Cafe Was (speak-easyish, decent food, wonderful atmosphere), the Arclight with the Dome (so nice), the Cat and Fiddle (we had onion rings and people-watched), the roof of the parking lot of the ArcLight (amazing view... and I've made out with a few too many men up there), and Musso and Frank's (oldest restaurant in Hollywood).

Afterwards, we drove up to my uncle's house in Hollywood Hills. He and his two boyfriends cooked us dinner. I hadn't met the more recent one... was rather flamingly fabulous, but nice. My mom thinks he's the cat's pajamas. We sat out on their balcony and I watched the four of them get silly on wine, enjoying the evening before the sun set.

It was a good day.

And since I have to be at work tomorrow at 630 or so, I'm going to get to it.

It being "sleep". Like I do.

But somehow I manage...

C and one of her partners came over last night.

They hung out in my kitchen making taquitos while I showered. We're no strangers to each other's bodies, given the amount of time I spent couchsurfing with her, wandering around my apartment naked while the water grew hot was nothing out of the ordinary.

She's been seeing this new guy, not the one that was with us last night. I don't like him much. He's very controlling, but in the way that makes you think he's doing you a favor, or that he "really respects your decisions". His hands are cold and damp, his haircut too feminine, his posture lacking.

The four of us are going to a Cinco de Mayo event next week. C, her two guys, and myself. He didn't want to go with us. He wanted to have her to himself, didn't want to share. Doesn't want to get to know the other people she spends so much of her life with.

My right arm has been aching lately, as it often does when I overuse it. Too much time playing keyboard jockey, too many nights falling asleep with my hands clenched into light fists, jaw locked shut, grinding my teeth.

I find myself daydreaming about a male arm sliding around my waist, pulling me into him for more contact while we sleep.

I find myself at a club in conversation with a one-night stand from two years ago, discussing how his girlfriend finds me desirable, and how that interest is, oddly enough, returned. Imagining a threesome- he's tall, well-dressed red-head, she's a leggy blonde, and I've my dark hair and swishy curves.

It'd look good. The three of us would look gorgeous together.

I spend my days talking with Roman, text, IMs, phone calls. Constant companionship of the platonic variety. I'm comfortable with him, comfortable talking with him, arguing with him, teasing him.

Found myself shooting emails back and forth with a man who I've been interested in for several years. When it trickled down from several paragraph exchanges to one or two sentences, I shrugged and moved along.

His loss.

I actually thought that. Without a trace of snark, but a sincere observation. I don't have interest in playing "chase the overworked businessman". He can hunt me down if he so desires.

Got a comment on an earlier entry. One sentence. Saying something like, "Damaged... so very damaged."

Had that mild rage rise up.

Probably not that rage one would expect.

But the rage that comes from being confronted with another set of beliefs that rolls egocentric in nature.

To express to someone that they are damaged is to say that you are healthy enough to comment on their state of being. Not only that, but that how they feel, how they experience life, their value system, is entirely incorrect. That you know, you know exactly how to be healthy and happy.

That one truth to living. You've got it.

Unfortunately, since it's a single sentence comment, that Ultimate Truth of happiness and health isn't being shared. There's nothing supportive or constructive.

No, it's just a drive-by comment. Unneeded. Expressing to the poster their superiority, the recipient, their inferiority. Nothing further to be communicated.

The buck stops here. Whatever that means, exactly.

It means that the opinions being expressed in the post were indiciative of damage. Meaning those opinions were unhealthy. Meaning that unhealthiness is wrong. Meaning those opinions were wrong.

But the commenter, the commenter is oh-so right. Because they know. They know that their opinions are right. Which means their opinions are healthy. Which means they are healthy.

When speaking with Roman on a similar, but totally unrelated topic, I can only that this to mean that the commenter, or anyone expressing such egocentricity, knows what the universe wants. Knows the Ultimate Right, the Ultimate Goal, the Ultimate Path to happiness.

At the time, I described it as the girl in question being on the other side of a double-ended dildo shared with the universe.

I swear that it made sense ...I think.

I have no tolerance for such mindsets, as hypocritcal as that may sound. I will argue with people whose worldviews I agree with if I feel like they believe they know the Right Way to Be, in whatever forum that may occur. Religion, social, sexual, political... I won't discuss their beliefs with them, but I will rip them a new one (as Roman discovered yesterday) if they're platforming for the Ultimate Right.

It's one of my biggest peeves, one of the things that will be guaranteed to either set me off of make me leave a room. I have walked out of family dinners with the sentence: "Let me know when this discussion is over."

Back to the initial starting point for this topic.

Am I damaged?

In my opinion, yes, I am damaged.

And that's the only opinion that matters on this subject.

Roman has prescribed to me that I need to step away from the MRA, evo-psych, and general PUA blogs for a bit, get my head out of that world. I was thinking that myself, so I'm going to try to mellow that side of things out.

When Friday rolled around, I was a small ball of rage promoted by fears and insecurities regarding ending things with GV8. I was snappy and unfocused, completely bitchy and anti-social. Work doesn't help at the moment, as my boss is out of town for the next few weeks, which puts me in charge of a department that I've never been taught fully how to manage.

So I drove over to a large Mexican restaurant down the street from the office after work, book in hand.

I go there about, eh, once every month or two.

But when I arrive, the hostesses (only one of which I ever recognize) seem to know who I am, comment that I haven't been around. I suppose that doing what I do (going to restaurants and eating while reading a book) makes me fairly easy to remember.

"Oh, there's that loser girl. Why isn't she at the bar with friends? Why is she off in a corner, reading a book?"

Nah, I know it isn't that bad.

For more brain relaxation, I went to see "The Back-up Plan" after dinner.

While I was not the only solitary female attending this movie, I do believe I might have been the only one there reading "The Mating Mind" through the previews.

That movie kinda hurt. But the water-birth scene had me laughing so hard I was falling into the seat next to me.

I also was breaking down the male lead's game techniques in my head. I really need a vacation from thinking.

Saturday, I went to the LA Times Festival of Books.

I did not think that there would be so many people there. I mean, really, people don't read. They just don't. Especially here.

But there were people.

I ended up feeling rather awful, for two reasons.

1. I... always feel outside of things. Outside of groups. I never fit in anywhere, in my opinion. So I'm wandering around this book festival surrounded by, theoretically, people that love reading as much as I do. So we should be... similar. Right? Constantly buried in books? Passion for words?

Well, that proved untrue. Well, untrue as far as I could tell.

Looking through books, through all these different booths and publishers with their own agendas to spread, looking for that one that will make me fall in love with the written word again. Failing.

I just want that one writer to knock my socks off. I want roughness and honesty, I want internal range and a hint of self-destruction.

Then I started checking in with the writers groups/guilds/camps/flocks/whatever, trying to see if I could find a writing group that would suit me.

When I tried to explain what I was seeking to do to the VP of GLAWS, checking to see if they had such a group (they sort by type), not so much. He just looked at me, slightly glazed, but still selling. Nice guy, but...

It's probably just me.

It's probably me expecting to be the outsider, expecting that constant judgement and that instinctive recognition. You know, the one where you feel people know you aren't like them just by looking at you, even if you look like everyone else, somehow, some way, they know.

Walk into any group with that mindset, and they'll likely "know", if just by your body language.

So, there was that.

Then, #2, walking around, looking at all these people that are self-publishing, starting their own publishing company, pursuing their dreams, getting themselves out there... and I've done nothing. I do these short bits for the blog and then... that's it. Nothing long, nothing in progress. I don't put in the effort, the time, that is needed for something more quality. I don't submit pieces like I should, I don't try to improve my writing.

I'm so afraid of failure, and so afraid of completing this project, that I do nothing.

So I was walking around feeling like a miserable outsider who has done nothing to try to achieve her goals, put in no work toward the "next great American novel". Going nowhere in life.

It was... no good.

So, around 230PM I used my lifeline and called The Bassist. We decided to go MOCA in downtown, as I had never been.

He got stuck in traffic, so I had a good forty-five minutes to wander around and take pictures of that area of downtown. It was pretty nice, though cold.

When he finally arrived and we got into the exhibit, I realized that I've never understood "contemporary" art. So much of it seems like a waste, like a bunch of overpriced pretentious bullshit.

But The Bassist, being all artsy and stuff, was able to explain it to me in a way that made sense, so I actually started appreciating it and understanding it. Which makes me a little sad because now... yeah, sure, I could see someone buying that painting that is two solid colored rectangles standing next to each other for, oh, $50K.

Or whatever these crazy people do.

The museum had a couple amazing photography displays. Completely emotional, near biographical work. I loved those.

And then The Bassist told me what had happened with this girl he had met.

He's such an unusual guy, and way too smart, that he has a hard time finding women that he connects with. He's also leans towards dating older women, prefers them in their 30s or 40s. He's a young musician. There's this definite gap for him between who he wants to date and who will date him because of that reverse age separation and the social stereotypes that come with being in a band and going on the occasional tour.

So he met this girl last week who was a near perfect fit in all these ways that he never would have expected to find in another person. He was raving to me about her for days because they were so ridiculously well-suited.

Turns out she has a boyfriend that she's been living with that past seven years and he's given her permission to have an open-relationship.

The Bassist, he doesn't swing that way.

He was so disappointed and so angry. Not at her, but at life, about meeting someone so near perfect to find... that.

We drove over to Hotel Figueroa for dinner while he ranted. Sat in the restaurant in the lobby and people-watched and ranted more. Wandered around the Staples Center, then went back to Hotel Figueroa (where we accidentally crashed a private party at the pool/bar, where French women were handing out plastic monkey masks) then drove mad-cap through downtown listening to some amazing Swedish band.

I hit the club without him after that, dancing the evening away even though my legs felt wrecked from walking all day. It's amusing that such minor physical exertion over the course of ten hours can wipe someone (me) out on a purely muscular level.

Afterwards, a group of us hit a nearby IHOP.

I'd rather have gone to Fred 62's, even though it was significantly farther away. But majority (and proximity) won out and about ten or so of us headed over to an IHOP with a too small parking lot.

I think I'm going to make a habit of taking a change of clothes along with me when I go clubbing. This is the second time where I have, fortunately, had a change of clothes in my trunk, so while all the other girls are sitting around in their too-tight club gear, all sweaty and uncomfortable, I'm peeling my stockings off in the bathroom, wriggling out of my mini-skirt, and putting on a comfy pair of cargo pants and flip-flops.

Sure, one might say I should have stayed clubified because I was sitting next to that DJ I have a small fancy for, but I simply could not bring myself to care. It is so very, very nice to be in clean, dry clothes after a night of dancing, while people are bringing you food.

And since I switched to flip-flops in the ultimate effect of laziness, and then propped my feet up on the chair across from me, I got a foot rub.

Yes, that's right. I got to spend all night dancing, sweating my ass off, to go out to an IHOP at 330AM, have food brought to me, be fed perfect bites of pancake by the man across the table from me, and get my feet rubbed.

It was so nice. I was near purring, leaning on the DJ apologizing for my occasional noise, but it felt too good. Being on my feet all day, then dancing... they were sore as hell.

Drove off around 5AM or so, headed home. Quick shower and crawled into bed.

Roman jarred me from my sleep with a phone call at 11AM. I knew I should've texted him when I went to bed, telling him not to call before noon. I think he has a thing for my "oh jesus christ what time is it, where am I, oh god why am I awake??" morning voice. It's all low and raspy, and I'm not coherent enough to be a smartass.

Basically, the morning after a club, I am a defenseless bed-kitten.

I tried to go back to bed after that, but it was too late. Forty minutes of tossing and trying to convince my body that it needed more sleep did not work. Ended up putting on Flashdance while I cooked breakfast, then cleaned and posted some furniture I needed to get rid of on craigslist (did a little photo shoot of it, too). Which still hasn't sold. This is lame.

Finally motivated myself to leave the house, ran by Trader Joe's on the way to my parents' and picked up ingredients for dinner.

There was this cashier, a woman in her fifties or so, dyed red hair, cropped close to her skull. Thinning. A little chunky, but nothing that would be unexpected on a woman her age. Large-framed glasses, heart-shaped face. No wedding ring.

She reminded me of my aunt, the one who killed herself last year.

Just that sort of open, slightly disconnected expression. Not stupid, but a little uncomfortable and unsure. Awkward without knowing why.

I watched her for a bit, as she rang up the man in line in front of me. Wondered if she was a lesbian, a widow, a divorcee, a spinster, or just a woman without a wedding ring. Wondered what she was doing, at her age, running a register at Trader Joe's. Wondered if she had experienced love, how many times, if her heart had been broken, if he was a cheating bastard, or if she had a partner at home that she was totally devoted to. If working at TJ's on the weekend was a way of making ends meet, or just something to do: a time-kill for lonely weekends. A way of getting out of the house.

Arrived at my parents', popped my laundry in the dryer, sat out on the patio with my parents while my father read the newspaper and my mother kicked my ass so hard at Scrabble. It was painful. Something like 196 to 300. I rarely lose that bad.

When I started cooking dinner, my dad got a little snappy. Not at me, but at my mom. Snappy, and unprovoked. Snappy, trying to pick a fight. Snappy, releasing aggression at something other than the actual source. Fuck-with-your-mind snappy.

That combined with his increased activity during the course of the day, even though he's got a chest cold and the last time he had that he ended up in the hospital with pneumonia, I had a mild freak out.

Totally contained, all internal.

But... yeah. The thought of him going into an extreme manic episode again, when there's no drug to blame, how badly that would fuck everything up, topple me off this unsteady perch of sanity, I started shaking. Started quizzing my mom on his behavior, his moods, when the last time he had been to his therapist was.

I'm not going to let this happen again.

My mother is all optimistic, doesn't want to think about it, doesn't think it'll happen again.

I'm on high alert.

I don't want to go through that again. I don't want to watch my mom go through that again.

Dinner was a success with the folks, but I was disappointed. It hadn't come out nearly as good as it had before. Afterwards, Dad and I curled up on the couch and watched Nightmare on Elm Street which, somehow, he had managed to not see until now. He was unimpressed, but I still love that series.

I drove home and went to bed, making it a weekend without any sort of contact with GV8.

It's hard. I feel a bit directionless without him, a compass with no north.

I've never really had a solid direction. Five year plans are as foreign to me as one year plans, it's only of late that I've really be considering the future. I have an envy for people who know what they want to do with their lives, where they want to end up, what their priorities are. A career path, even. It terrifies me to think that I might always be working jobs that I'm good at but don't really have a passion for, don't have an interest in, always rather be writing than sitting at a cubicle.

Three years from now and still in the same industry?

I'd be twenty-nine. How sad is that?

Four years and I'll be thirty. I can't even imagine.

I've been developing this theory lately, about how, when I was a child, avoiding chores (most typically, it was mowing the lawn and I would hide up in my room, hoping that my mother would not wake me and I could "sleep" until it was too late to mow the lawn, which my eleven year-old brain would not realize that it would have to be after dark for that to happen), avoiding pain (shots, lighting matches)... these were things that were dreaded, were focused on.

Each month was slow, waiting for things that were planned weeks or months in advance to happen, waiting for the weekend, waiting for Christmas or Halloween. Life crawled, and each event seemed to have a larger impact then than a similar event would now.

I'm starting to wonder if it is a ratio thing.

When we're five, one day is a significantly larger percentage of our life than one day at the age of thirty. Sure, it's less than 1%, but if we're comparing...

5 yrs x 365 days = 1825 days means 1 day is equivalent to 0.055% of our life. Which doesn't sound like much.

But then we go:

30 yrs x 365 days = 10950 days means 1 day is equivalent to 0.0091% of our life.

Which is, in my opinion, is a relatively large difference. At least it is in social stat. Wish I remembered more of it.

So each day, and the events of each day (or lack thereof) has a greater impact when you've experienced less time because it is more of your life.

Time, in your view, would technically take longer.

Which could help explain why time seems to move so much faster as you age, and the little things have smaller impact, you don't go out of your way to avoid mild, expected pains.

And, yes, I know that there's many contributing factors. Experience. Deadening nerves. Maturity. More activities, more demands on time.

It's just an interesting thought for me.

My parents, being hippies, used to take my sister and I on long roadtrips across the western half of the US. It was normal for a day of driving to range around 8 hours. Sitting in the car for eight hours when you're five or six is a nightmare of boredom. You're sitting there going, "Jesus Christ, this is eight hours of my life and I haven't experienced a large volume of hours yet, I'm only six!"

And you're asking your mom how much longer and, in my family's case, I would be answered in Sesame Street episodes, which were an hour.

"Mooooom, how much longer?"

"Two Sesame Streets, V, and then we'll get lunch."

If it was less than a Sesame Street, she'd hold her fingers apart and explain that if this distance was a Sesame Street episode, then this shorter distance was how much longer we had to drive.

It was those indeterminate ones that drove me nuts.

Time has been a focus of mine, lately. Dealing with self-discipline and reality, shoving through the things that bother me, realizing that it's past midnight right now and I'm exhausted and I'm going to be up in less than seven hours and I lost myself at the computer again.

Goddammit.

There's been a bit of drama in the parental abode.

It has been one of those "he said, she said" things. Only this time it concerns my sister and the navy man who has been renting a room from us for the past six or so months.

It's a complicated situation.

They got a few drinks at a bar, danced, and came back to my parents' house and went to his room to watch a movie.

My sister says that he started forcing himself on her, pressuring her, before finally listening to her and backing off.
He says that they shared a brief kiss, then stopped themselves and realized that it would not be a good idea to continue further due to the living situation.

It's hard because she's my sister. I have to take her side in such gray areas because she is the one I'm going to be growing old with. Husbands divorce, friends fade, but family is family.

But she's a prude. And she's prone to a sort of bitchy set of mild hysterics. And she exaggerates. And she's defensive as hell. And she'll shove off blame.

He, on the other hand, is a sweet young man. He's the son of a family friend who wanted to get out of the area he was living in so he could get a better job and go back to school. He's been very supportive of the family as we've been going through these rough last months, what with Dad going mentally AWOL. He's been vital to keeping my mother sane when I'm unable to be there for her, and when she's stuck alone in the house, wondering what happened to the future that Jack built.

But he's an incredible horndog. Guys talk to me, guys talk to me a lot. I hear fantasies and realities and fetishes and guilt complexes. I hear bad things that they've done to women, how they've cheated on their partners in horrific ways, I hear the pranks and the gossip.

Talking with him, sometimes I wonder if all the men who I've sat and talked with over the years were hiding the true level of sexual need they keep bottled under their skin. This guy is almost, what my father calls, a walking life-support system for his dick.

Which is probably pretty typical for a very attractive, very active 22 year old male.

He's still a sweetheart. He's still intensely loyal and devoted to improving his future and serving his country (which isn't my bag, but he's dedicated to his beliefs which is admirable).

So they're telling two different stories. The navy man might be finding himself promptly ejected from the house... which would bone him on many levels.

I was talking with my buddy, Chris, about this earlier today. He said the truth is likely in the middle of the two stories.

I'm so used to thinking that it's one way or the other, not a combination plate with beans and rice.

This all happening... brought more light onto the current situation.

Since December, when my father went off the proverbial deep end, I've become the "man of the house".

You see, his recovery period has left him feeling full of self-doubt and major depression. When he's not working on his business, he tends to tune out watching television or, more often, sleeping the day away.

It's very hard for him.

All of his adult life, and some time before that, he's been the smartest guy in the room. And I don't mean booksmart, but lifesmart. He's got this "I know what I'm doing and this is the right way to be" total self-confidence. And he does have the book-knowledge and the life experience to back that up.

He doesn't doubt himself. Or, at least, he doesn't appear to doubt himself.

He is the total stoic male. He doesn't like holidays, he doesn't like socializing, he doesn't like playing cards or board games. He doesn't like Disneyland. He doesn't like cartoons. Shopping for him at Christmas is an exercise in frustration and, really, repetition. Power tools and barbeque utensils. Maybe a sweater for the office for casual days. A tie or two. Every few years, a new watch.

He doesn't join in. He's "outside" the family, as much as we try to bring him in.

A fourth wheel.

He doesn't bond, he doesn't disclose, he doesn't open up, and it's only been within the last year that he's started apologizing.

And I do mean that. My mother called me in shock earlier last year, telling me that my father had actually apologized to her for something. She was blown away. Hell, I was blown away.

In his worldview, he is never wrong. He knows best. No one is as smart as him. No one has been through the things he has been through.

End. Of. Story.

Which has given me some mental kinks, I'll say.

So when his mind went bust last December, when his idea of reality was suddenly incredibly false and his behaviors beyond erratic to the point to where we were having to physically encircle him in the ER in order to keep him from escaping... god, does that hurt.

You can't trust yourself. You can't trust what you think, what you feel, how you react.

For the alpha male of the house, for Mr. I-Know-What's-Right, that's shattering.

Everything you know is truly, potentially wrong.

So he's withdrawn into himself.

He's not making decisions, he's not giving input, he's not reigning in my sister when she goes on another one of her queen-bitch tears.

And my mom who married a very dominant male much to early, who never got a chance to establish herself, take care of herself and her life, determine how things should be... she's left running the show.

But she doesn't know how.

And she certainly can't control my sister.

So she calls me. Like she used to call Dad, or sit and talk with him after dinner, once my sister and I went to bed. Trying to figure out how to handle certain situations (admittedly, most of those situations revolved around me and my poor behavior). She'd talk and he'd listen and then he'd tell her what to do. And if she didn't do it, if she told him she didn't want to take such extreme action so fast, he'd let it sit until she got upset about it again and he would fly down from Mount Olympus (not really) and hand the situation with an iron fist.

When she calls, I don't tell her what to do. I give her thoughts, new angles to think about things. My input. And she'll ask what I would do if I were her. She wants to know what to do, she can't decide it on her own.

I wonder if she was ever really allowed to make those decisions. I mean, yes, she'd make decisions after consult with my father, but never with the decisiveness that he'd end up taking. The impact from her decisions was never enough to resolve the problem. Her decisions were never validated by the results. Therefore, her decision-making ability was never encouraged, so she never developed the faith in her own decisions that was needed to carry out future, harder decisions.

Dad would always have to do it. Dad would be the bearer of the final straw.

So now it's me.

Me until he gets his feet back under him.

I don't even live there.

And I don't mind it. I like being there for my mother.

But it is very, very much a reminder of ways I could have been. Ways I could be, if I lose myself too early with GV8. If I submit without establishing myself and faith in myself, which is something I do need. This apartment, this living situation, finally being out on my own by myself, taking care of everything by myself... it's something that so many people who have cared about me for so long have pushed me towards.

I haven't lost respect for my mother for this. Some people would, I know. Be strong, believe in yourself, don't let a man dominate you, don't lose yourself. It's so easy.

But it's not so easy. Not for everyone. Maybe for them.

She's devoted her life to my father and to her children. She tells me that she never had any dreams, never any goals, other than having children. Not as an end all be all dream, but as a Something I Want To Do goal.

I don't think that's bad or worthy of looking down my nose at.

I understand it too well. Both of us were raised in unstable homes with a very dominant male figure. I'm still not adjusted to the idea of taking care of myself, of being truly responsible for myself. I've gone from my father to boyfriend to boyfriend.

But this is a different time from when she was growing up.

And my father, her husband, is no where near as bad as my grandfather. Not that he was a bad person, but certainly a hard one to be raised by, to learn from as a relationship-template.

People shove at me to live the way I should. My brain, my... strength? The independence that I prize so much. It's hard for them to wrap around the idea that I'm not what they picture me to be. I'm closer than I was, but I'm still not there.

Even so, at 26, I'm more experienced than my mother's 55.

Correction. At 26, I'm more experienced at taking care of myself and making impactful decisions than my mother is at 55. But she's vastly more experienced in raising children, in bookkeeping and insurance and making lunches, cooking well-rounded meals, keeping my father's rages in check, ironing, doing laundry, making beds, organizing family get-togethers...

It's living. What we devote time to, we learn.

She learned other things, making me healthy and strong. Trying to teach me to be independent in ways she never was.

And now I get to be those things for her.

He once asked me why I don't live like I drive.

That, I think, was one of the first things he noticed about me: how I drove.

Well, that's not true. Face, body, movement, flirting.

Then he followed me to the place I was apartment sitting that first night, down the freeway. He got out of the car and told me he loved how I drove so confidently.

I do love to drive. It's how I zen, how I express joy and excitement, behind the wheel is where I go to do my best thinking.

The way I learned my right from left when I was a child was by realizing that the driver's side was my left, the passenger's side my right. Whenever my childbrain would stumble over which direction was which, I'd imagine myself in the car and I would know.

My father named me after an engine company. Not because he was a motorhead, but because he liked the name. When he drove us around, I would sit and ask him questions about how to drive, which pedals were which, what to do in certain situations. My childhood was an education in handling a car.

I did not get my driver's license until I was eighteen, though.

By that time, the idea of driving, the changes that would entail from me learning to drive, were much too intimidating. It was only when I started fighting to turn my life around from mooching, self-destructive gutterskank into something resembling an adult that I finally faced my fear of getting behind the wheel.

And it was awkward. I kept to the far right, afraid of the on-coming traffic, cringing at each pass.

I'm sure my father, the one teaching me, was shocked. I was his daughter. How could I not just slide in behind the wheel and have instinct kick in?

Then I hit the freeway.

Pieces slid together in my brain and I understood the flow. It was perfect, it was beautiful. My driving instructor let me tear loose on the freeway, then ended the lesson early and bought me lunch, as there was no need to continue.

Things just made sense.

And that bled onto the hated surface streets.

So, last night, I finally braved returning to the club that I met GV8 at, in order to move past the associations, move past the fear that I would walk in and see him with another girl. I drove through the heavy beach fog on PCH, then cut inland until the air was clear again, parked several blocks away as the place was overflowing.

I went to the club, I watched a girl in a g-string and nothing else crawl around on the floor, picking up roses with her teeth while being caned. I stepped past the man cuffed to the leather horse, being whipped, the girl on the medical table, legs spread and thighs red from impact, and sat with friends.

I did not do my circuit, looking for someone to entertain me for the night. I did not try to seek to ease my discomfort at being at the club in another's desire. When I was hit on, I let it be known that I was off the market. When a man I was introduced to continued to glance my way, even when being very obviously flirted with by a cute black girl, I made sure to shut him out, sitting on the arm of a couch, legs crossed at the thigh, wrists crossed in my lap.

I did not flirt, I did not tease, I did not engage.

I left my friends only a few times, to get out of hot rooms and to get water.

Not to find someone to distract me.
Not to find or incite desire.

Dress was casual, make-up was light, the necklace GV8 bought me on our pre-Valentine's Day date resting just below my collarbone.

I left a little after 1AM.

Hopped on the same freeway in the same direction that we took when he followed me down that first night.

Thought of him shutting his car door and walking to me across the street from the apartment. Of him complimenting me on my driving. I was flattered at the time, but the more I learned of him, the more I came to realize exactly how much of a compliment that was.

I drove home from my parents' this evening, glancing down at the speedometer, realizing that I've put about five thousand miles on this car, and I'm finally starting to get used to its blind spots, which are so very different than my last car, which means I'm back in my casual driving territory of 90MPH. I don't even notice when I get there, it feels so natural.

He asked why I can't live like I drive.

There are certain fears that torment me, anxiety that floods my system, buckets of self-doubt that shut me down so hard.

But not behind the wheel. Behind the wheel, I'm at peace.

I don't know why it's so hard for me to bring it from four wheels to my own two feet.

... ... ...

I'm doing something every night this week. No break, no rest, booked solid. I've got pieces of a desk I'm trying to build strewn on the floor in front of my fireplace, hamburger patties I made for dinner for my parents earlier this evening in my fridge, laundry that needs to be put away, and I continue onwards.

I keep trying to remind myself that I need to stop thinking of him, that I need to stop letting this emotion crowd into my brain, so I can focus on me. That when everything is right with me, it'll bleed out into the rest of my life.

I do believe that.

Been talking with someone lately, another person all torqued up from childhood and life trauma. Reminds me of how much we cling to the identity of who we are, that we are unable to let go and be healthy. To heal.

Whatever healing is. Whatever healthy is.

Who decides that? The self. But if the self is unhealthy, then who decides what is healthy? How do you know when you aren't healthy? How do you know when you are?

We look out upon the sea...

I hate having this roiling set of emotions in me, and the inability to express it, to communicate, to settle my brain down long enough to identify all the pieces.

I am supposed to be writing a paper right now. My midterm. A delightful romp discussing the sublime as presented by Burke, and Wollstonecraft's arguments in Maria against Burke's politics using said definition.

Okay, not really a delightful romp.

Instead, I wake up feeling just like the previous evening. Low. Realize that I'm likely PMSing. Decide to put my head down and power through it anyway.

Drive down to the coffee shop where I plan on writing my paper. As I'm pulling into the parking space, my phone rings. It's my mom. Sobbing. Telling me about how my dad's appointment with the psychologist went yesterday. How the psychologist pulled her away from him after the appointment to let her know that he was suicidal.

Subsequent falling apart.

Calling me because I'm the only person she can talk to about this stuff.
Calling me because she feels completely isolated from everyone because the family is so small.
Calling me because my sister is completely unsympathetic towards all that is going on and usually just makes my mom feel worse.

Twenty minutes of sitting in my car in the parking lot, listening to my mom alternately crying and then apologizing to me for ruining my day.

How powerless we feel. All three of us. Mother, father, daughter.

The other daughter, off, doing her own thing, rejecting the reality of what is going on so she can preserve herself.

Hard not to hold it against her.
Hard not to let the anger build.

I miss GV8 so much. I just want to call him, for him to comfort me, to make me feel like it will be okay, to lend me his strength so I can be what my mom needs, what my dad needs.

But that's exactly what he doesn't want. He doesn't want to be my crutch, he doesn't want me to be "needy". He wants me to be strong on my own terms. Strong like I should be.

Which means I have to put my helmet on and write this paper.

As for tonight, we'll see. I had plans, I might keep them to get my mind off of life. To cope. I might drive out to my parents', even though they will not be home until late, as my mother called some old friends and made dinner plans with them to get Dad out of the house, get him social. As social as he can get right now.

Crawl up the stairs to my old bedroom, curl up in a sleeping bag on a piece of memory foam, wake up and pretend that I'm fourteen again, that everything is normal, as normal as it every got.

That we're all happy again, happy and whole.

I just made the most amazing hamburger patties. I was not expecting such goodness out of the money and effort required, and I'm pretty happy with myself and my continued experiments with cooking.

The navy man who rents a room from my parents is coming over tomorrow. We call each other brother and sister, but there's heavy sexual tension between us. He's a good looking guy, has my favorite male coloring (black hair, blue eyes), lots of tattoos. He's also just a decent, caring guy.

He was going to spend the night tomorrow, so I could get my cuddle on, but after the realization that I need to push myself away from my usual comfort-seeking behaviors so I can find other ways of finding comfort that rely solely on myself, I politely texted him and let him know that I didn't want him to spend the night.

Which is sad for me, as I really do like his company, would have loved to have him over and stayed up talking about life and seduction until the both of us passed out.

But I have to draw the line until I get it under control. Have to figure out where things stand, and if I make an exception for one person, I'm going to find ways to rationalize others. Because I do that.

It's funny. I finally get my own place, no parents, no boyfriend, no roommates, which means it's my rules, my time, and I can have wild sex in every room of this place (though it's not that big, so it's not saying much), and... I'm not taking advantage of it. Well, not taking advantage of it on a sexual level.

Poor planning, I suppose.

My parents still aren't doing well. Won't be doing well for awhile. I'm starting to make a point of taking a minimum of eight hours out of one of my weekend days to drive out there and stay with them. I can bring paperwork, projects, laundry, a book, and get things done while still hanging out.

Last weekend, my father was so depressed he was hardly talking. Hours without saying a word, just sitting on the couch, waiting for time to pass. My mom was scurrying around the house, trying to do the usual chores while still going into the family room to sit beside her husband, pat him, kiss him, rub his feet, while he stared blankly at the television. His face has gotten so old in the last month, not wrinkled, but just... disconnectedly drained like an Alzheimer's patient.

I wonder if this is going to be something that will stay with us forever. We've survived so many other things, but nothing as bad as last December.

A scar on our family.

We're waiting for the medication to kick in, so he can be himself again, so he can be functional. The doctors say to wait, that it'll happen, it's just a matter of adjusting, checking in, and adjusting again.

It's hard to get over my fear of him, fear built of all the years growing up, being topped off so nicely with the terror of the potential instilled in me, the potential that finally became actual.

I still love him. I still adore him.

So I went over there after my hair appointment, washed his car with the navy guy, did a few loads of laundry, came in to find my mother not quite freaking out, but definitely another weight on her back. My father loves to cook, loves to create in the kitchen, mix things together in unrepeatable ways because he doesn't pay attention.

The plan was that he was going to cook dinner. Get his kitchen groove on.

But by the time the cooking hour rolled around, he was still lost in his own mind, sunken into the couch, expressionless. He did not want to cook. It wasn't that he didn't want to cook, really, as much as he was so gone into the depression that even standing up took on a weight that he was unable to lift.

Mom didn't know what to do. Grocery shopping has been minimal of late, since my father has been out of work since December. There's not a lot in the kitchen, only things that my father would think to combine into some random meal.

So I went to the store.

Rather, I was doing my laundry and wearing a pair of men's pajama bottoms with the Nintendo logo emblazoned across them, no bra, a Henry Rollins t-shirt from his current tour, my hair up in a messy bun, soap and water from washing the car down my left side, and my mom mentions she doesn't know what to do about dinner, we have salmon but nothing really to cook it with.

So I throw on the only pair of shoes I had with me: the original Docs again, grab the navy guy, and head over to the local Trader Joe's.

I got a few looks.

I also got my groceries.

Came back and helped my mom clean up the kitchen while I cooked, dragging my father off the couch by being charming and cute. This works right now, because I'm only over once a week, so I can play at being the rarity, play up that I'm only there for a short period so he better spend time with me and talk to me to get him out of his stupor.

If I still lived there, it wouldn't work.

We all sat down when the food was done, my parents, my sister, the navy guy, and had something resembling a normal family dinner, even though my father's conversation was limited.

This really is the most important part of my life.

It drags me back, holds me from doing things I want to do for fear that I would somehow hurt my family.

But they are everything to me. Sometimes, when things are good, I forget that I should be clinging to each afternoon or evening spent with them like it's gold. That I shouldn't be sitting off somewhere with my nose in a book, or watching TV with my sister.

It's hard to picture them dying. We all die, but it's so disconnected from right now. They're in their fifties and it feels like we've got another forty years together. I feel that when my mom dies, I'll simply cease to exist because I can't imagine being in a world where I cannot talk to her.

The people that make us. Not physically, but emotionally.

I simply don't know. I don't know how to express the things I feel, the things I think. Words fall short so often, I fall into repetitive, slightly altered, phrases. Just looking for that connect, looking to be more than the inferences my words bring to the individual.

I remember hearing something, in a movie, where the truly tragic thing of life was that we did not hear each other, did not see each other, as who and what we truly were, only could hear/see the interpretations created by ourself of those others.

Or maybe that was a dream I had.

Words as barriers. At least when I touch someone, I can imagine I'm somehow getting my emotions across.

This week has been unexpectedly exhausting. I find myself, like usual, in my car, occasionally surfacing from the haze to try to remember what day it is, when I last ate, what the hell I ate, what I did the day prior.

And it's a mental work out.

I have to link to something.

Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday... Tuesday was the meeting with the grad head. Which meant Tuesday was the night at my parents' house, playing cards with my mother, talking about my sister, about the navy man that has taken up residence in the guest room, about how my father's big deal just fell through, about his medication, the doctor's appointments, the box of stories that my mother found in the closet, the poem to his father he wrote when he was in his early twenties, telling him how much he hated him. Petting my cat, feeling his love and adoration, his yellow eyes, his casual, hip-swaying saunter that my mother continues to threaten filming with me walking beside him, so she can prove how much we walk alike. Eating leftover carnitas, guacamole blended in to give moisture.

Ace, two, three, pending the four of spades, my mother and I play the game her mother taught her, the game the three of us used to play together around my grandmother's kitchen table before she could no longer take care of herself, before the agoraphobia and anxiety kicked in so hard she could not live alone, before the dementia set in and visiting her meant visiting the mental ward above the senior citizen's home.

Punching the in code so the doors would unlock for long enough for us to slip in, hoping an aggressive resident wasn't on the other side.

Watching the dye in her hair fade out from brown to white, watching her reject my mother, blaming her for what happened, denying food when she'd try to feed her, as her hands were too shaky to feed herself.

The tongue darting out again and again, wearing a spot down on the corner of her mouth.

I come from a line of frightened women.

Anxiety through men, fear from our fathers.

My father, his unpredictable rages, darting in front of his anger to protect my mother, my sister, from his lack of control. Too young, too young.

My grandfather, brilliant scientist and alcoholic, terrorizing my grandmother in front of my mother, my mother watching the fear her merchant marine father instilled in the woman who gave birth to her.

My great grandfather, a severe hypochondriac who would shut the house down, black-out curtains, silent children traveling the hallways whenever he would convince himself he was about to die. Death was always coming. A childhood behind heavy curtains.

My mother's family has been in Los Angeles for four generations. Very few can make that claim. M great-great grandmother had a house in the middle of Hollywood, torn down to make room for a gas station. I look at the pictures of this beautiful Victorian house, the white picket fence, the arching trellis, the vines entangled, leaning beauty.

I wonder if she lived in fear. I wonder what it is that she gave to us, what her husband brought to us.

I used to dig through my mother's genealogy reports, used to go through them with a fascination, watching the names change, flipping through the yellowed paper, folded up on itself, woven into a hard cover with twine. Hundreds of years of families, of people, of things passed down into us. Stories that were passed down from my grandfather to my mother and her brother, stories that he learned from his father or mother.

It is not the stories that shape us, but those who tell them.

There is a picture hanging in the downstairs hall, on the way to the master bedroom, of my grandfather in his merchant marine uniform, a cigarette between cocky, smiling lips.

In the master bedroom, there are two pictures sharing one frame. On the left, a middle-aged couple, regal, the man, my great-grandfather, in another military uniform, medals decorating it. On the right, my grandfather as a young boy, six or seven, in a child's sailor costume.

The sons join the military. They focus on science, on technology, on serving the government. My uncle was a colonel when he retired, on his way to becoming a general when his wife asked him to stop his promotions. My grandfather was one of the designers for the NIKE missle bases that protect California's coastline.

But my mother did not have sons.

She had two daughters, two daughters so foreign to one another that there is more that would link one of us with a perfect stranger than to each other.

I find myself wondering if it ends here.

Do I take this, so many generations of people, and terminate the line? My one true cousin has already reproduced, his wife giving birth late last year. Do I need to add to it? Is there any reason, other than to give my parents the joy of being grandparents, something they want so badly? My sister hates children, she's never going to willingly reproduce.

So it's me.

My family, on both sides, has never been one towards replenishing itself, at least not in these last few generations. So many of the last generation was either gay, disinterested, or prone to suicide that there are only six of us, ranging from 17 to 35. My sister and my eldest cousin, they'll not have kids. My two younger cousins probably will. My first cousin already has, but may stop at one.

It makes me look at the Christmas parties, the Thanksgiving dinners, as more and more of my relatives die, watching them age from party to party, wondering if by the time I am my mother's age, the gatherings will have shrunk from what they used to be when I was a child, around thirty to forty people, to ten.

And then less.

Is this the way it is supposed to go, funneling into nothing?

Don't drive me blind...

The weekend was spent at June Lake with some girlfriends, being mellow, enjoying the mountains, the snow, the complete and total lack of cell phone reception or internet, being blocked off from anything that could distract me from things that needed to be done.

And it was beautiful, it was perfect. Light snowing, that brisk wind that penetrates clothing, even though I was running around in a t-shirt half the time. The condo was lovely, a three bedroom design, perfect view of the lake, lots of space, decorated for summer vacations full of fishing.

I read and wrote, more reading while on the road, writing while curled up on the couch. Churned out a good 7,000 words over the weekend, which was nice. Haven't been forced to sit and focus on a story in a long time.

And my reading was Peck's Road Less Traveled, which was recommended to me a bit ago, then brought up again by the navy man living with my parents. Decided it was a sign of sorts, so I tore through it.

It opened me a bit. Helped me see things that I had not seen before, or at least old things from a new view. This is always welcome, if not always comfortable.

He said, of the many things that echoed with me, that to grow is to give something up. That one of the reasons why people do not grow is because of that loss, the fear of that loss.

And I was reminded of the time when I was just about to turn 18, when I was talking with an old friend about... gods, I don't remember exactly. I was trying to change, though I don't remember why. I was trying to feel things again, instead of being stuck in a constant detached apathy, but I was afraid that I'd never be able to regain that outer shell again if I opened myself up.

My friend, he told me that I would always be able to draw upon that detachment that I was so good at. It would always be there.

He was wrong.

But it was his confidence in telling me that I would not have to give up that shield that allowed me to step forth on the path I chose.

Because I was not willing to be vunerable, I was not willing to true change, not at the heart of me.

These last few years, maybe even longer, I've used sex as a shield when it comes to dealing with men. Not the act of sex, but my knowledge of sex, my over-experience of sex. It's a way to bring down the alpha dog because men so often define themselves by their experience, and it's so very easy for me to slide in and set them on their asses. I take joy in it, gliding in, unnoticed, and then opening fire, in my own way.

I thought, not that I was teaching, but that I was opening them a bit, that there was a purpose in the action.

But it's just fucking dick-waving. It's me being insecure in myself, just like those men who posture at each other, who talk big but can't back it up in the least, but they'll keep building the conflict.

Except I can back it up.

Where it is similar is the motive behind both actions: insecurity. Proving of the self.

And it is true that I sometimes do it simply because I enjoy causing social dissonance. I love that look of confusion, when someone's world view is suddenly not able to apply, and they have to scrabble around to try to make sense of things, you watch the gears shifting, clicking together, and it's a moment of mental vunerability, a quick absence of boundaries.

But there are times when I do it because something not related to sex or sexuality is making me uncomfortable. So I lean on my strength instead of confronting that which bothers me, developing it so I can be secure in it.

The muscle is weak until you exercise it.

And I'm allowing parts of myself to atrophy with disuse.

Which means I have to stop. I will never get better, never be more, if I'm not willing to step outside that comfort zone, give up that well-earned crutch, that sculpted shield.

So there's a project, one of many. But it's recognized. I know what I have to do now, and I'm aware of what things I do when I engage in that behavior with that motivation.

... ... ...

I went out with GV8 last night, hit Amoeba and Cafe Was. I really like that restaurant, though for the atmosphere, not the food. The food is okay, just not great.

But before that, he showed me the construction site.

The loft is coming along well. So much has been done in the last two weeks. It's going to be finished very soon and it looks better than I had imagined already. He walked me through the various rooms, showed me the spa, asked me about decorating and the like while I took pictures of the progress.

A stereo was playing, one of the works must've left it on.

Then Mazzy Star's Fade Into You came on and I asked him to dance with me.

And we did. We slow danced in the partially finished BDSM room, illuminated by a set of construction lights, footprints in sawdust, his hands roaming over my back, his face in the curve of my neck, then my hair, inhaling.

I could have sunk into him, merged.

Over dinner, we talked. Mostly about me, how I feel like I'm not living up to his expectations, how much it bothers me that he can't see how much I've changed in the last few years, how I'm weighing my words with him now because I'm afraid anything I say will get tossed around in his head without discussion until he makes a decision that greatly impacts me like he has in the past. We talked about love, falling in love, collapse and reformation of individual boundaries and identity. We talked about how he does not know what he wants, which is what is causing us such stress now. We talked about how insecure and anxious he makes me feel, keeping me on edge, that I'm losing trust in him because of his constantly changing mind. How I need a commitment to level out, that he's never, ever given me that, so he's never seen me truly level.

I came home happy, but exhausted.

Because he said that, this coming weekend, he'd take me out on a true date.

I'm not sure what that means. We've done "true" dates, in my mind. I don't ask for much, I don't need much, high-priced meals, shows... it's all the same, save for the novelty of the memory that keeps it standing out, and you can have novelty with a ten dollar meal.

But I'm excited. I'm looking forward to what he will do.

... ... ...

I went to dinner earlier this evening with my aging model friend I've brought up a time or two before.

We talked about GV8, and about me. How GV8 called me needy the other night, and how much that bothered me.

She said that I wasn't needy. And... I remembered... I'm not. When I'm single, I'm content. More than content, I'm happy, I'm confident, I'm attacking life with a machete.

Toss me into an unsteady or undefined relationship, I immediately become edgy, anxious.

And GV8 has put me into a highly emotional, insecure situation. So I'm being anxious, fighting my need to cling to him for stability he cannot offer me.

She also said that, in our discussion, and this is more me needing to remember this than communicate it, as my eyes are starting to close while I'm typing which will make coherency a risky idea, that I've watched my parents' relationship. My father's random outbursts of rage, my mother's constant appeasement, making sure that the rages are minimal, that they don't happen at all.

And that's what I do in my relationships.

I appease. I am constantly submitting myself to the needs of the man I'm with because I'm trying to stop any sort of outbursts or ending of the relationship.

It's fear-based. It's what I've seen, what I've learned without realizing. This is why I am so confident when I'm single, so happy and free, and why I'm so edgy and lose so much of myself when I'm in relationships. I give, not out of love, but out of fear, out of a need to appease, to placate.

This needs to stop.

I'm glad my friends are comfortable enough to talk to me about such things. I'm glad I know so many amazing people who are willing to put up, even encourage, my constant navel-gazing. They're a blessing.

They help me grow.